Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1887-12-29
FARMING IN JAPAN.


q recent letter to the BGU writes: j
said in my first letter from Japan that
the people in cities seem TO be playing
ut running town. One feels the
same way about the farmers. Every
thing is on such small ,clle and is
carried OH with such wonderful nice
ness that one can scarcely realize that
farming here is the business of a life
and q very earnest and hard business
at that There are no such things as
farm-houscs; all live in villages of
towns. There are no such things az
barns or out-houses in which to store
crops. Many farms are not one acre
in size, and comparatively few over
ten acres.
On one of these little holdings the
farmer viii have his rice field and a
dozen other crops. Everything isl
grown by irrigation. Although i'll
rains 50 much, no one relies upon nat.
ural waterings. Everywhere there are
irrigating bitches. The little fields
are each perfectly level. A farm of
two or three acres will have half
dozen levels. In the fiat valleys they
all appear nearly the same, but in the
y =
on the hill on mountain sides, each
field is terrace TO itself. In the lat
ter the fields are of all shapes. often
only half-dozen feet wide, zig-zag,
rounding, and in every Imaginable
shape to suit the CONFEDERATION OF the
land so that each field is perfectly
level. The water irrigating one field
drops down to irrigate those below
The farms all look like the market
gardens near our cities. The pillow is
used only in few localities, and then
not for looseuing the soil but to throw
up beds. ! saw the first one to-day
near this place. All ground is dry
and perfectly prepared. The spade
and fork are unknown, but spade-like
hoes and forks do all the digging.
Net weed is ever seen, and not a
foot OF ground is wasted. Between
the rice patches the little ridges which
conlino the flooding waters are planted
in peas or some other crop.
The land is all double cropped. In
May the wheat and barley is harvest
ed. Immediately follows rice, corn,
millct, or something else. One secs
rice, sweet potatoes, eggplant, millet
of several varieties, turnps, carrots,
tarro, beans, cotton lilies, squash.
scsamum, maize or Indian corn, buck
wheat, hemp, flax for white cordage,
sugar cane, dishrag plant, tea plant,
indigo, mulberry, pear trees and many
other varieties OF food crops side by
side in little tiny fields and in all
stages of maturity. In the large, low
lying river valleys the rice fields are
apparently Of great extent, but on
close observation one sees that even
here few fields are much over one
eighth to one-quarter of an acre in
size.
In one locality | saw tea plantations
Of good many acres, the possessions
of single man But these are eX-
ceptionaL | saw rice being harvested
near Toxic a month ago, and yet even
in this locality, where it is warmer,
tho bulk Of the crop is not vet ready
for the sickle. October is the regular
harvest month for this great staple.
1t is the great crop OF the country.
Formerly AL rents were paid in rice.
All lands belong 30 the government;
the farmer pays SO much of the crop
in lieu of taxes. Under the new and
better system Of government all rents,
.. e, taxes, are paid ia money. Form
erly a comparatively few daimios held
the entire country in lief, paying to
the government SO many sacks of ric".
They let the land to the tenants, tithjug
everything, and virtually owned the
mastrs. The daimios are now thing